Chapter 9 Valentina #3
He inhales me deeply, and my whole body trembles under the weight of him pressed against me.
I feel like prey—catnip to a predator—as if my nearness is the only thing keeping him from storming back into that room.
Isaiah pulls me tighter, folding me into his chest, his arms wrapping around my waist in a cage I don’t want to escape.
His nose skims the curve of my jaw, his breath ragged, shuddering, and for one raw second I feel him breathe me—like I’m the only air left in this suffocating place.
“Fuck,” he growls against my neck, the sound so guttural it nearly knocks my knees out from under me.
“Zay—” I whisper, my voice shaking, but before I can say more he wrenches himself away.
The moment breaks as violently as it began.
His shoulders slam back into the opposite wall, tattoos gleaming under the dim light, chest heaving like a caged animal ready to tear itself apart.
His eyes are low as they looks at me, but I keep my eyes low, looking into the emptiness of the hallway, refusing to look at him.
My head feels like it’s packed with hornets—every word they threw at me still buzzing: pit, claim, crown, cage, First Lady, alliance with Cast. I can’t breathe around all of it.
Xavier—smoke, leather, and command—peeling the fight off me like a second skin until I’m hot, shaky, traitorously willing.
Isaiah’s hands still ghost my temples, the taste of his kiss salt-sweet on my lips, and I think of what I just promised: to wear a man like a sigil so the club won’t devour me, to call a brother who’s a stranger and barter peace with my body on the line.
I’ve handled blades, bone, men twice my size—but this is different.
This is a room full of choices that all end with someone owning a piece of me, and I am drowning in the knowledge that part of me wants to let them—if it means no one else bleeds.
“You can’t be mad at him,” I whisper, though the words scrape my throat raw.
Isaiah’s head snaps up, eyes blazing. “Yes, I can. I will. I fuckin’ am.” His voice cracks with the weight of it, every word a fist pounding against the wall of his chest.
“Why?” I breathe, voice trembling. “You like the idea of me. I was literally given to you by my father as collateral. There is no reason for you to feel this way for me. I mean, you don’t even know me.”
Isaiah’s jaw tightens, but his voice softens, low and certain. “Sometimes you see someone and you just… know.” He pushes off the wall, closing the space I’d barely managed to put between us. Every step he takes feels deliberate, heavy with meaning, until his body heat is pressing into mine again.
“I know,” he whispers, eyes dark, burning. “Fine, I don’t know you. Not really. But isn’t it enough that I want to? That I want you?”
His lips hover over mine, close enough that I can taste the smoke and heat of him, close enough that one wrong breath will close the distance. My chest aches, pulled taut between the ferocity in his gaze and the pounding weight of my own memories.
My mind flickers back like a film reel I can’t shut off—my father using me as collateral, trading me like a chip on a table.
The nights I slept in strangers’ houses because I didn’t have one of my own.
Ricardo’s cold hand on my shoulder, reminding me I wasn’t a daughter, just a weapon to be sharpened and used.
The truth that I’ve always been an orphan, no matter how many roofs were over my head.
Every jagged piece of me screams burden. A collection of wounds, stitched together and called human.
My throat tightens, tears threatening but unspilled, and I shake my head, the motion sharp, cutting through the charged air between us. “No,” I rasp, voice breaking. “You don’t want to get to know me.”
Isaiah doesn’t flinch. His hand rises, rough but careful, sliding along my jaw until his fingers tilt my face up to his. His dark eyes blaze down into mine, refusing to let me look away.
“Angel,” he murmurs, raw and certain, “I do. There is nothing too dark, too fucked up, too beautiful about you that I don’t want to know. I want you. There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more.”
And then his lips crash against mine.
The kiss is wildfire—fierce, consuming, unrelenting. His body slams me back against the wall, heat and muscle caging me in, one hand gripping my waist like I might vanish if he lets go.
My resistance shatters instantly. My fingers weave into his messy hair, yanking him closer, pulling a guttural groan from deep in his chest that vibrates through me.
His mouth devours mine, hot and desperate, every drag of his lips a demand, every flick of his tongue a promise I’m terrified to believe in.
My lungs burn, my heart hammers like it’s trying to break free and throw itself into his hands. I arch into him, a silent, desperate answer. A low, possessive sound rumbles out of him, shaking through my bones, and his mouth claims mine again—but slower this time, devastating in its certainty.
His hand leaves my waist, sliding up to cradle my jaw.
His thumb strokes my cheek with a tenderness that weakens my knees, a contradiction to the hunger devouring me.
The other hand roams lower, gripping my thigh and hitching it up around his waist. The new angle grinds him flush against me, and a jolt of raw, electric pleasure streaks through my core.
A broken moan rips out of me, swallowed instantly by his kiss.
He rolls his hips against mine, slow and deliberate, denim grinding into the thin fabric that separates us. It’s maddening, too much and not enough, a friction that sparks fire in my veins. I meet him, rocking against him, clawing at his shoulders, pulling him tighter, closer, more.
He breaks from my mouth only to trail heat down my jaw, lips searing against the frantic pulse pounding in my throat. His teeth graze, then his mouth seals there, sucking lightly, marking me. Claiming me. The thought makes my knees threaten to buckle, heat pooling low and sharp in my belly.
“Isaiah,” I gasp, the word ripped from me, equal parts plea and surrender.
“Don’t ever think I don’t want anything more. Anything less,” He whispers against my lips.
For the first time in too long, I let myself feel it—the reckless abandon of someone wanting me not as a weapon, not as collateral, but as me.
And it’s the most dangerous thing of all.